venerdì 31 dicembre 2010

Invader (steet art special)

Invader (born 1969) is a French street artist who pastes up characters from and inspired by the Space Invaders game, made up of small coloured square tiles that form a mosaic. He does this in cities across the world, then documents this as an "Invasion", with books and maps of where to find each invader.

The mosaics depict characters from Space Invaders and other video games from the late 1970s. The images in these games were made with fairly low-resolution graphics, and are therefore suitable for reproduction as mosaics, with tiles representing the pixels. The tiles are difficult to alter and weather-resistant.

Invader installed his first mosaic in the mid 1990s in Paris. According to the artist, it was a scout, or sentinel, because it remained the only one for several years. The programme of installations began in earnest in 1998.

The locations for the mosaics are not random, but are chosen according to diverse criteria, which may be aesthetic, strategic or conceptual. Invader favours locations that are frequented by many people, but also likes some more hidden locations. In Montpellier, the locations of mosaics were chosen so that, when placed on a map, they form an image of a giant space invader character.

The mosaics are half built in advance, and Invader travels with them, and half from the city he is invading. When he arrives in a city he obtains a map and spends at least a week to install them. They are catalogued, pictured and Invader use a map indicating their locations within the city. Typically, mosaics are located 10 to fifteen feet above the ground, and often on street corners in areas of high visibility.

One of the more prominent places where the mosaics have been installed is on the Hollywood Sign. The first was placed on the letter D on December 31, 1999. During further trips to Los Angeles, Invader has placed mosaics on the 8 other letters of the sign.